Painting Death CO.

[Ornithologist]

I'm looking for some advice on painting Death Co. Mine always seem to feel too flat with no depth. I normally use inks to get depth on my models, but I'm not sure the best colors/ techniques to get that depth.

[Panzer]

Painting black is kinda hard. You really need to do some highlighting as well imo

[Major_Gilbear]

Rather than using plain black and then highlighting it up, try something like this:

 

> Basecoat with a 1:1 mix of black and a deep blue of your choice

 

> Add small amounts of grey to your base mix for increasing highlights - keep the highlights small, but don't be afraid to go reasonably light.

 

> Wash with a 1:1 mix of black and blue ink, with a little matte medium and some water mixed in so it's not quite so intense.

 

It gives you a lovely deep rich black colour, and the subtle cool blue hues in it contrast especially well against warm reds and golds. :)

[Brother Crimson]

An easy way to paint black can be to do pretty heavy drybrush followed by a wash. I like to do two rounds of drybrush with eshin grey and dawnstone or fenrisian grey. This will leave the recess completely black and lighter color on the raised areas. Then you can do a couple of edge highlights to make it pop.

[Paladin777]

I’ve started doing a light dry brush of shadow grey over black on some of the more textured areas and on corners and edges on one perspective angle. It ends up looking pretty good.

[shaun03]

google the scale 75 video of their black and white. It's a great reference for doing black. I used it on my death co and dreadnought. 

 

Also dark blues and greens as base and use pure black as shadow and in the recesses works nice is another way. 

[infyrana]

Been watching how to paint Deathwatch GW style.. might be worth a shot to watch the GW vids on youtube?  Personally I am not a fan of painting every edge with a highlight colour using a solid brush stroke - edge brushing is fine, but I'm gonna try a bit of dry brushing the grey colour shades instead over the black.

 

*ahem edit.. deathwatch not deathguard - got the starting word right at least!

Edited January 24, 2018 by infyrana

[Firepower]

I paint black rather simply, just doing edge highlights of neutral grays.  That said, one thing that helps a black model pop is the bling.  Unfortunately at a glance, most of Death Co bling is red, and black and red actually don't have a high contrast, so you often need a particularly vibrant red to really stand out from flat black.  

 

As many have pointed out, you don't actually need to do flat black.  A near-black grey with good shading can work just as well (and if done right, actually looks significantly better than flat black with edging).

[Major_Gilbear]

[...] black and red actually don't have a high contrast, so you often need a particularly vibrant red to really stand out from flat black.

 

This is very true; black (and white) are neutral colours, and therefore using pure black/white (even with grey for highlights/shade) doesn't give you as much contrast against the red as you might think.

 

What makes the paintjob on something like a Death Company model stand out more is enhancing the black in some way to better contrast against the red, and to add small, bright, neat highlights that help to "describe" the shape of the model without losing the effect of the black.

[Ekfud]

Just starting on mine this week too - quickly realising khorne red does nothing and the contrast needs to be much higher :-)

 

As a related note - what colour do people use for joints on black armour? I’m keeping to dawnstone/ulthuan edges on the armour plates themselves but figure a blue-grey might be better in between?

[Major_Gilbear]

As a related note - what colour do people use for joints on black armour? I’m keeping to dawnstone/ulthuan edges on the armour plates themselves but figure a blue-grey might be better in between?

 

You could try a mid grey with a blue-black wash, or perhaps a mid-silver with a black wash? :)

[Firepower]

I just leave them black with no highlights, actually.  Mainly because when I started on my Templars adding another step seemed like a pain in the butt   I don't actually mind the 'void' much, because it felt like silver or grey would draw attention away from the black around it, especially on very outstretched limbs where the soft armor gap is very large.

 

But again, I use flat black for armor.  If you have a lighter shade, you can get away with a bit more contrast.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Firepower

[Arkaniss]

I use Skavenblight Dinge instead of black. Nuln Oil darkens it and I can keep black for soft armour and weapon casings.

[Xenith]

I have some awful photos of my DC here.

 

I went with the cold grey rather than the blue grey. Luthermax has a great recipe for a non flat black in his thread, but I'm too lazy for that.

[MeltaRange]

When doing black I like to give it a zeniethial highlight of Incubi Darkness over pure black, then glaze/wash the recesses back down to pure black.  Then, I give all the edges an edge highlight of Incubi Darkness, and a second edge highlight of Dark Reaper.  I feel like that color is very nice next to Red.

[Brother Aether]

When doing black I like to give it a zeniethial highlight of Incubi Darkness over pure black, then glaze/wash the recesses back down to pure black.  Then, I give all the edges an edge highlight of Incubi Darkness, and a second edge highlight of Dark Reaper.  I feel like that color is very nice next to Red.

 

Any chance you have a picture of this somewhere, MeltaRange? I'm about to repaint some of my DC (a timely thread – thanks, Ornithologist) and I think this sounds like it might look quite lovely.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Brother Aether

[Firepower]

As an aside, you can actually make a 'warm' black as well as the 'cold' black made with blues, purples and such. But since you want contrast with the reds, cold is still the better option. ;)

[Ornithologist]

I will have to show some pics when I try some of this. It all sounds interesting. 

 

Gotta say the edge highlighting is not something I normally do... maybe time to experiment?

[Damon Nightman]

I hate edge highlighting! So, I believe I followed the masterful and majestic Luthermax's method for his DC. to the best of my abilities. I most likely butchered his method, but what I do is prime with Chaos Black, heavy dry brush of Eshin Grey, light dry brush of Administratum Grey, and wash with Nuln Oil. 

 

Here are the best pics I can find of my results (a bit sloppy). However, you should really check out Luthermax's thread. I'm still learning, and I do not do it justice at all! 

Edited January 25, 2018 by Brother Lemartes

[Ekfud]

 

 

As a related note - what colour do people use for joints on black armour? I’m keeping to dawnstone/ulthuan edges on the armour plates themselves but figure a blue-grey might be better in between?

You could try a mid grey with a blue-black wash, or perhaps a mid-silver with a black wash? :)

Thanks - I’m trying using iron breaker with a drackenhof wash. Looks ok and happens to have been what I used for cabling on my dc dread so should help tie together.

[Karhedron]

I paint black rather simply, just doing edge highlights of neutral grays.  That said, one thing that helps a black model pop is the bling.  Unfortunately at a glance, most of Death Co bling is red, and black and red actually don't have a high contrast, so you often need a particularly vibrant red to really stand out from flat black.

I also do black with just a simple grey highlight and leave it to the bling to bring the models alive. Death Company actually have a lot of bone and parchment which I find provides a good bit of contrast. Here is a picture of my Lemartes but the current DC models are almost as blinged up as he is.

 

[Ornithologist]

 

I also do black with just a simple grey highlight and leave it to the bling to bring the models alive. Death Company actually have a lot of bone and parchment which I find provides a good bit of contrast. Here is a picture of my Lemartes but the current DC models are almost as blinged up as he is.

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, My death Co models are actually just old assault marines, so they have almost nothing as far as cool bling. But I do like your scheme on Lemartes.

[Calistarius]

 

I do the same as Karhedronuk.  I like to do a matte black and then do a couple of edge highlights with dark then light grey.  Here's a chaplain I'm working on.  The next step will be the grey highlights.  I'll post a follow up if I can remember. 

[Ornithologist]

Okay, step one: strip the old paint is completed. now its time for a spray paint and to try some of these out.

[ixzion]

I haven’t gotten around to Death Compaby yet, but what I plan to do is try to replicating the technique described here http://figurementors.com/painting-black-power-armour-by-giovanni-di-lena